The best skateboarding video games of all time, ranked by somebody who has performed all of them
A bit over 25 years in the past, Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater landed on the unique PlayStation. It wasn’t the primary skateboarding sport; that accolade seems to belong to Atari’s 720, a late Nineteen Eighties arcade machine. However with full respect to that sport, THPS was the massive one, kicking off a number of many years of fascination with the game from each gamers and builders.
Why do skateboarding and video video games make such a pure pairing? Perhaps it’s one thing to do with how video games let folks stay their excessive sports activities fantasies with out risking a painful/embarrassing journey to A&E. It’s additionally loads simpler to look cool on a display screen than while you pitch up at your native skatepark and roll nervously in direction of deep concrete bowl or perilous half-pipe.
Skateboarding video games are additionally simply stupidly good enjoyable.
With Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater 3+4, a ground-up remake of the third and fourth entries within the beloved sequence having simply landed, it looks like a superb time to look again on the some ways the game has been tackled in video games – each large and small. Listed here are the best skateboarding video games of all time.
10. The Ramp (2021)
The Ramp is barely a sport. It was made by only one individual, who describes it as a “digital toy for skateboarding-loving folks.” A Tech Deck inside a display screen, if you’ll. However whereas The Ramp is not any Tony Hawk’s by way of content material, it does a outstanding job of recreating the movement state that each one skate boarders are consistently chasing.
There are only a handful of ranges, from a conventional half-pipe to an empty swimming pool bowl, and there’s no rating system or conventional development. It’s simply you, the ramp, and a wise implementation of the “pumping” method that skate boarders use to construct up pace. The Ramp may be small, but it surely does its factor so elegantly that it deserves a spot on this listing.
9. Session: Skate Sim (2022)
The primary time I performed Session: Skate Sim, I spent over an hour within the tutorial part, which tells you every little thing you could know. An inheritor to EA’s Skate sequence (extra on that in a bit), however way more hardcore in its method to simulating real-life skateboarding, Session is much much less all in favour of empowering you to drag off four-minute Tony Hawk’s-esque combos than it’s in exhibiting you the way difficult it’s to easily ollie up a curb.
The sport revolves round a twin stick management system that maps every foot to a stick, so even getting the board off the bottom is one thing it’s a must to take into consideration. There’s no scoring system, so as a substitute you’re requested to suppose like an actual skater and use the in-game video editor to create movies that show you’re not mendacity about that cool trick you probably did. It’s fairly light-weight and unpolished in comparison with a few of its rivals, however the dedication to ultra-realism is spectacular.
8. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (2023)
I ought to say proper on the high that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk isn’t solely a skateboarding sport, but it surely is one of many coolest video games you’ll ever play with skateboarding in it. Closely impressed by cult SEGA favorite Jet Set Radio, this ludicrously trendy indie gem sees you play as a child in a youth gang who units out to retrieve his just lately decapitated head (it’s an entire factor) by difficult rival gangs, doing graffiti and in the end taking management of the fictional metropolis of New Amsterdam.
Whereas Bomb Rush Cyberfunk’s cel-shaded graphics and affection for early 2000s avenue tradition make it really feel like a religious successor to Jet Set Radio, that was an inline skating-only sport. Right here the traversal choices prolong to BMXing and skateboarding too, and whereas the precise skating isn’t that deep, with a comparatively restricted tricks-set at your disposal, it’s all a lot enjoyable to take a look at that you simply gained’t thoughts.
7. Skate Metropolis: New York (2025)
Indie developer Snowman has cultivated a well-earned status of being the grasp of 2D board sports activities video games for cellular. It’s most likely greatest recognized for the sensible Alto’s sequence of snowboarding side-scrollers, however its two Skate Metropolis video games are arguably even higher. Clearly impressed by the likes of Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater and the Skate video games, Skate Metropolis places an impressively large number of methods fairly actually at your fingertips, due to intuitive contact controls which are simple to understand however satisfyingly robust to grasp.
Each video games are value a obtain, however the sequel provides extra talents and real-world skate spots in New York to cruise by way of. Whether or not you’re going for big-score combos or simply vibing out within the leisurely Free Skate mode, that is as slick as digital skateboarding in your telephone will get.
6. Tony Hawk’s Underground (2003)
For some, the Tony Hawk’s sequence misplaced its manner the second it dropped the Professional Skater bit from the title, however in the event you have been extra sympathetic to the nonsense plots and creeping Jackass-ification of later entries, then they could be your favourites. Tony Hawk’s Underground was the primary on this new period for the sequence, so its new story mode, which concerned you creating your personal skater and travelling round North America and past in an try and earn the respect of the varied real-life professionals who appeared within the marketing campaign, felt fairly novel on the time.
THUG additionally enabled you to get off your board and climb for the primary time, and it even had driving missions. Whereas all this additional stuff undoubtedly meant the main target of the sooner video games was misplaced, it was a enjoyable evolution of the sequence at a time when the trade was changing into obsessive about GTA-style sandboxes.
5. Skate (2007)
Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater will at all times be the family title of skateboarding video games, so when EA’s Skate sequence first rolled onto the scene in 2007 it was much less all in favour of snatching that title from the Birdman and co than it was in being the skateboarding sport for skate boarders. In contrast to your common THPS, wherein combining three completely different grinds on the propeller of a helicopter earlier than a touchdown in a nostril handbook is simply one other day on the workplace, Skate wished to make it really feel good simply to efficiently land a kickflip.
Shifting the emphasis away from Tony Hawk’s face button controls and onto the analogue made it really feel loads nearer a simulation of the actual factor, which when mixed with a deep understanding of genuine skate tradition resulted in one thing completely contemporary.
4. OlliOlli World (2022)
Once I reviewed OlliOlli World again in 2022 I known as it top-of-the-line platformers I’d performed in years, and that also stands in 2025. This endlessly playable 2D skateboarding sport was (tragically now not in existence) developer Roll7’s magnum opus, combining the ingenious analogue stick-focused management scheme it had been perfecting because the unique BAFTA-winning OlliOlli, with an irresistible Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic.
OlliOlli World’s Radlandia setting would possibly trying one thing that’s been ripped straight out of Nickelodeon, however make no mistake: whereas it may be extra accessible than its predecessors, there’s a hardcore skateboarding sport hiding underneath these pastel hues, and it might be a crying disgrace if it marked the tip of the sequence.
3. Skate 2 (2009)
After firmly establishing itself because the skateboarding connoisseur’s different to Tony Hawk’s within the groundbreaking first entry, Skate 2 was the basic sequel that constructed on every little thing that made its predecessor nice (presumably studying from longtime Tony Hawk’s developer Neversoft that altering issues up an excessive amount of dangers the wrath of followers). The unbelievable “Flickit” management scheme was left largely untouched, with the one vital addition being that you possibly can now get off your board and transfer objects round on this planet to arrange methods.
The fictional open world metropolis of San Vanelona was as soon as once more the setting in Skate 2, however EA ensured it was greater and extra fascinating to discover. It was by no means going to really feel as thrilling as the primary sport, however Skate 2’s beefed up marketing campaign and sequence’ greatest physics techniques means it was a superior one in just about each manner.
2. Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater 1+2 (2020)
It’s simple to be cynical about remakes within the trendy period of video video games, however when executed as flawlessly as Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater 1+2 it’s very laborious to not fall head over heels in love. The primary two THPS video games established a gameplay loop that feels pretty much as good as we speak because it did within the early 2000s, mixing actual skateboarding methods with an unashamedly video game-y disregard for the legal guidelines of physics.
Vicarious Visions didn’t mess with any of that old-school arcade goodness, however well retrofitted mechanics like backbone transfers and reverts from later entries to each video games, whereas bringing what have been two pre-HD classics into the fashionable period with a ground-up visible overhaul that gave ranges like Venice Seashore, College II and the long-lasting Warehouse from the primary sport a brand new lease of life. In all probability the last word Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater sport. Nicely, nearly.
1. Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater 3 (2001)
Your choose for the perfect basic Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater sport will most likely come right down to which one you recall taking part in essentially the most of after faculty or in your college halls, and for me the talk at all times comes again to Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater 3. It had some all-timer ranges within the likes of Airport and Cruise Ship, a terrific soundtrack, and on the time was an actual graphical showcase.
THPS3 can also be a vastly vital entry within the sequence for what it added to gameplay, introducing reverts for the primary time, which allowed you to hyperlink combos with manuals by tapping a button the second you land a trick on a ramp. At this level we have been about as far-off from what is definitely possible in actual skateboarding as you may get, but it surely additional cemented the Professional Skater skater video games as aggressive multiplayer classics. Oh, and you possibly can unlock Darth Maul and Wolverine as playable characters, so there was additionally that.